WRITING TIP: Writing in dark times

When things are dark — inwardly or outwardly — it doesn’t mean our work also has to be dark, though we might have an impulse in that direction. If anything, such a focus could prove redundant, like adding additional layers of window curtains to an already dark room instead of lighting a candle. As David Foster Wallace put it, “In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness.”